A commentary about how living with a diabetic cat has an effect on nearly every aspect of my life.

Monday, March 24, 2008

Stalking Casey

Casey is my other cat. The one you don’t hear too much about. The innocent bystander. The civilian. The one with normal blood sugar.

Normal blood sugar. Oh, how I wonder what normal blood glucose looks like in a normal cat. Lately, I’ve been wondering that a lot.

I guess things with Isabella aren’t exciting enough, so I’ve been looking at Casey’s tender, un-poked little ears with longing. Would he let me? Could I get blood out of those? His ears are always so warm… The blood flows out of warm ears so easily…

The problem, I feared, was that Casey was an eyewitness to the early, gut-wrenching efforts to test Isabella. Those were, uh, dramatic, times, and poor little Casey would make himself scarce whenever the meter and lancet appeared. Nowadays, they both come running when they hear the snap! of the test strip vial (can you say bonito flakes?) but Casey, like an elephant, never forgets.

Nonetheless, this past weekend I decided to give it a go. I knew he’d never just sit in place like Isabella, so I planned to poke, then scrape the blood droplet onto my fingernail and set him free. Piece of cake.

On Saturday I told him what I had in mind, picked him up, and carried him to the couch where I test Isabella. He squirmed; I lightly restrained. He feinted left; I talked sweet to him. He ducked under my arm, hopped to the floor and looked back at me as if to say “you’ve got to be kidding.” That was that.

Alrighty then, I’d have to come up with another approach. On Sunday, I saw my chance. The little guy was taking his midday snooze on a chair. He was relaxed and warm. I grabbed the lancet pen, crouched down, and grasped his as-yet-unmolested right ear. Poke! Casey flinched, but wasn’t distressed. Alas… no blood. Again: poke! Bigger flinch this time (and now I’ve got his full attention) but still no blood. I figured I could get maybe one more poke done before he’d flee the scene so I quickly cocked the pen and pressed it to his ear. I was right: now I had no blood and no cat. (Along with a much greater appreciation for how easily Isabella’s ears bleed.)

Undaunted, I tried again tonight. Same scene: Casey snoozing in the chair. Different reaction: as soon as I leaned over him and touched his ear, he flattened them and gave me the stink eye. I determinedly unfurled an ear and whipped out the lancet pen, and Casey, just as determinedly, shot off that chair and out of the room.

But he paused long enough to look back at me: you’ve got to be kidding.

I stumbled across your site on accident and had to laugh when I read your post especially the one about the 5 stages of feline diabeties. Sadly, Biggy, my diabetic cat died yesterday. He was 15 years old and was diagnosed with diabetis when he was only 3 years old. He was very easy to regulate in the olden days when we had humulin U. When that was discontinued we tried lanuts and ended up with PZI. I was never able to home test him because he was very hard to draw blood from. Even the vet had difficulties. I just gave him 2 shots a day 12 hours apart for years and he was fine. If you have the ability to home test him you are way ahead of the game. If you are not already aware make yourself familiar with the "Somogyi Effect" Towards the end with my cat I believe I was encountering this problem. I was increasing his insulin because his glucose was so high when actually I should have been decreasing it. In any event kudos to you for caring for your kitty. Mine brought me many loving years!